


What We Make Ourselves

by thedevilchicken



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Force Ghost(s), M/M, Mentor/Protégé
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:22:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22670950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: All the other students have a Force ghost as a mentor. Ben's arrives late; he doesn't think it's better late than never.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Ben Solo
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21
Collections: X-Ship - The Crossover Relationship Exchange 2019





	What We Make Ourselves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aurae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurae/gifts).



When Ben was young, he told himself he was going to be a great Jedi. He was going to make his family proud - his mom and his dad and his Uncle Luke were going to be so pleased by how strong in the Force he was, just like Luke himself and all the old Jedi who'd gone that way before. He was going to be a great Jedi and so naturally a great Jedi would be his mentor, too. 

Luke's temple was never swarming with students and so it never really swarmed with the ghosts of Jedi, either, but Ben knew they were always there. Before the temple had ever existed, Luke had spent years wandering the galaxy, sometimes with Ben's mother and father, or their friends from the rebellion, or sometimes alone; Ben has never known the whole story but what he does know is Luke stumbled across some kind of ritual, an old one, outlined on a barely functional old holocron in an even sorrier state than all the others he'd collected. In the first years of the temple, Luke performed the ritual; it was meant to help his students learn. After that, the ghosts came. They bound themselves to Luke's students, a different one to each, invisible to the others. They each made a choice, when the time came, and took on a new padawan. 

Ben was excited to know who his ghost would be once his turn eventually came. Some students got theirs at seven or eight years old, some at ten or so, some later, some seemingly never or else maybe they had ghosts so faint that they could barely see them, let alone hear them when they spoke. He was going to be a great Jedi, so his ghost would be a great Jedi, one of the names they knew from the history the Empire had tried so hard to bury just for Luke to bring back up again.

At the start, he was excited. But years passed and no ghost came. 

Some of the other students made fun of Kai sometimes because his ghost was Jocasta Nu, the old Jedi librarian, but Ben knew she knew things no one else did. Irissa's was a Wookiee twice her size and she complained all the time about having to learn Shyriiwook to understand him - Ben couldn't help but feel like he'd have been a better fit because he'd spent so much time with Chewie growing up. Olex's was Master Yoda and she always said no one would be jealous if they knew what he was really like, but Ben was jealous. Ben didn't have a ghost. He was fourteen years old, and he didn't have a ghost. He'd been so sure, and he looked so hard in case the ghost was just faint and might get clearer, but there was nothing.

Everyone told him that was normal, but he wasn't meant to be _normal_. Even Luke had one - Ben assumed it was his old master, but at the time he preferred not to talk about it. At the time, he preferred to forget ghosts existed at all, and sometimes it was even almost easy to: after all, no one could ever see them but the student they were bound to. No one would have known for sure if he'd just made one up, either, and sometimes he considered it, but frankly even thinking about that felt pathetic. 

By fifteen, he was giving up hope. By sixteen, he'd given it up completely. By seventeen, he was angry, and by eighteen he'd resolved to make his own damn way despite it. And then, nineteen years old, his birthday just passed, Ben went to sleep in his bed in his hut and woke up to find he wasn't alone. The figure sitting in the chair across the room, legs crossed at the knee, was glowing slightly, like the diffuse light of a lightsaber but without its brighter plasma core. Finally, a ghost had come. But a new ten-year-old had met Luminara Unduli a few days earlier and she'd brought along her old padawan, too; under the circumstances, Ben couldn't find it in him to show enthusiasm.

"You took your time," he said. 

The ghost smiled wryly. He was an old man with white hair and a beard, wearing traditional Jedi robes, and Ben had no idea who he was. So much for Mace Windu, who could have helped him with his duelling. So much for Aayla Secura or Plo Koon. So much for Anakin Skywalker. 

" _You took your time_?" the ghost said. "That's not very much of a welcome. Would you prefer I go away again?"

"Yes," Ben replied, testily, maybe kind of petulantly. "I was trying to sleep. Couldn't this have waited four more hours? It's not like I haven't waited years already."

The ghost shrugged, and he stood, and he walked away straight through the wall, and Ben groaned and closed his eyes. He hadn't even asked his name but considering how long he'd been waiting - and how long it had been since he'd given up waiting - he wasn't sure if he cared or not. He pushed his face into his pillow and gave a frustrated yell so loud half the temple probably still heard. He'd probably fucked up the only chance he had with his Force ghost. 

But the ghost came back the next day. While he was giving his lightsaber a tune-up in his hut, the ghost appeared again. He seemed the same, except maybe just a little different. Ben couldn't put his finger on exactly how.

"Are you here to teach me?" Ben asked, not looking up. 

"What exactly do you want me to teach you?" the ghost replied. 

"Aren't you meant to tell me that?"

"I'm not sure there are any particularly well-established rules." 

"Everyone else seems to think there are." 

"There really aren't, you know." 

Ben put down his lightsaber. He finally looked up. "And how would you know?"

The ghost shrugged, his hands outturned. "Do you think we don't talk?" he asked. "We definitely talk."

"What, you have weekly meetings?"

"Perhaps." 

"You're infuriating." 

The ghost smiled. "You know, you're not the first person who's said that," he replied. "I had a padawan who thought the same. You remind me of him." And then he promptly disappeared again. 

He was back the next day, humming to himself as Ben practised with his lightsaber. He was there the next day, meandering distractingly up and down the library aisles as Ben tried to read. He was there the next day, flapping his flowing sleeves around while Ben tried to meditate, and the day after that, whistling while Ben took his turn to cook. It really didn't take much more than that to work out his Force ghost was a dotty old man, not the legend he'd persuaded himself to expect. And, each time he came, he seemed just a little different. Each time he came, he grew a little younger. Wrinkles smoothed. White hair turned red-brown. Maybe he didn't turn any less dotty, but soon enough Ben couldn't say he looked old anymore. He didn't even look as old as his uncle Luke and maybe handsome if he bothered to look, at least in a Jedi way. If his looks had made up for his bitterness, Ben maybe wouldn't have minded as much, but they absolutely didn't.

Over the months that followed, he learned to live with it. While the others told stories about their ghosts, Ben pretended he still didn't have one; it seemed better that nobody chose him than he have what he actually had, the strange tales that seemed like half truth and half wild exaggeration, though something familiar lingered in them. He learned to live with the disappointment and with the distraction, and every now and then he'd catch himself in a smile that he worked to put out. He resented it, he told himself. He definitely had to tell himself. 

He was twenty-one years old when he saw his ghost with Luke. He saw them talking. He _heard_ them talking, though that shouldn't have been possible. Luke's mouth twisted wryly and he called the ghost _Ben_. In flash, anger flushing his cheeks, Ben knew. In a flash, it made a twisted kind of sense.

"You didn't tell me you were fucking Obi-Wan Kenobi," Ben said, that night, back in his hut, when they were alone. 

The ghost raised his brows. "I'm not _fucking_ Obi-Wan Kenobi," he said, and in his prissy core world accent it sounded ten times dirtier than it had any right to. "I _am_ Obi-Wan Kenobi." 

"You never told me." 

"You never asked." 

"Aren't you meant to say?"

Kenobi spread his arms. He shrugged. "Don't you recall me telling you there is no _meant to_?"

Ben laughed bitterly. He supposed he did recall, but that didn't make it better. It didn't make it better until later when he realized it did, and then he smiled against his pillow.

Kenobi arrived while he was swimming; Ben dripped on the deck in his swimming shorts, his hands on his hips, until the glowing blue ghost he'd been named after was forced to look away. 

Kenobi arrived while he was in the 'fresher, showering; Ben didn't turn away, just raked back his hair and stood there, naked, underneath the spray. He stood there until the ghost looked away and disappeared again. 

Kenobi arrived while he was in bed. When he pushed one hand down under the waist of his pants, when he stroked himself, he wasn't particularly quiet; it didn't take long to make him vanish. The next time, he pushed back the sheets. The next time, he pushed his pants down past his hips and bared himself. The next time, he looked at him. For a moment, the next time, Kenobi looked back, before he disappeared again. And all Ben could do was laugh out loud as he stroked himself, but in the end he always came back. 

"I thought you said there were no rules," Ben said, when it had been going on for weeks like that. "Were you lying?"

Kenobi frowned at him. Ben was on his bed, kneeling, naked and hard. He gave himself a stroke, rubbed his thumb over the tip and drew Kenobi's gaze. His frown deepened. Ben smiled. The Light Side didn't feel particularly close. 

"It wasn't a lie," Kenobi said. "This is just a terrible idea." 

"I think you already had one of those before," Ben replied. "You and my uncle."

"I don't know what you mean." 

Ben's smile twisted wry. "You were never my ghost," he said. "You were his. What is this? Am I the good deed for your afterlife?"

Kenobi sighed. He raked his fingers through his faintly glowing hair. He didn't answer the question, so Ben knew that he was right. The next time, when Kenobi watched him right until he came in long, thick bursts over his stomach, he _knew_ that he was right. Every time after that felt like a little victory, until he realized Kenobi could look, but he could never touch. After that, even victory was tempered with frustration.

And, over the years, he's blamed them both for everything because what they did so obviously pushed him straight from Light to Dark. He never had the ghost that he was meant to have - he had someone else's hand-me-down. His uncle never trusted him. His not-ghost was a liar. His not-ghost watched him when he stroked himself at night, and talked to him, and told him things, and told him Snoke was lying to him. Though Ben never listened, Kenobi stayed with him, every day, until the end. 

He blamed them. But now it's come to it, now he's joining them, he knows this was never about them. 

Now, he joins them. Now, Kenobi smiles his usual dry smile and takes his face in both his hands. He feels him, for the first time, and he knows none of it mattered. 

He was named after Ben Kenobi. And when Kenobi presses his mouth to his, it's like his namesake has the power in him to wash all Ben's sins away. 

There are no rules except the ones they make themselves. Now they have time to make more.


End file.
